Wednesday, 27 November 2013

I knew what I wanted to say, but I find the subject so heartbreakingly sad it is difficult to choose the appropriate words, but I still wanted to say something...........

So I'll just ramble on - as I usually do, and hope it makes sense.

I'll start by saying, it is a crazy World.

Sometimes I don't understand the World. Well, I guess it's people, more than the World, I have trouble understanding.

I'm talking about understanding female genital mutilation, or FGM as it's more commonly referred to in the media. It's usually written as FGM, not only because it's shorter but probably because we don't like to talk about genitals in Britain. Well, not in any serious way, although we are quite happy to make jokes about them. Not that there's anything funny about FGM.

Anyway, once again female genital mutilation is currently a popular subject, it's all over the Internet, and in various publications, and on the TV news.

Female genital mutilation is described as any procedure that intentionally alters the genitals of a girl, or woman, by the removal of the clitoris, labia, or both, for non-medical reasons.

Practitioners of female genital mutilation claim there are health benefits of the procedure, and in many cultures it is considered to improve the marriage prospects of the girls and women.

However, there are no health benefits in the removal of any part of female genitals. Obviously.

It is difficult to imagine such a barbaric practice being carried out nowadays, 2013.

But if the numbers reported of the girls and women who have been mutilated are accurate, then it's definitely not an insignificant problem. Having said that, just one single case of FGM is one too many.

According to what I've read, approximately 140 million girls and women are living with the consequences of female genital mutilation. And 30 million are thought to be at risk of FGM.

Unsurprisingly, the complications of female genital mutilation are numerous, including heavy bleeding, problems urinating, infections, cysts, infertility, complications during childbirth, and the increased risk of deaths in newborn babies.

Female genital mutilation is reported to be most commonly carried out in the East, West, and North-Eastern regions of Arica, as well as some countries in Asia, and the Middle East.

For many years FGM has been associated with Mali, Somalia, and Sudan.

Female genital mutilation may not be something that's thought to be happening in Britan, but that's not the case. An estimated 66,000 women are reported to have undergone the procedure. And 24,000 girls are considered to be at risk of FGM.

I read that Scotland in particular has a large number of girls and women who have been forced to undergo FGM. The government claim they are trying to stop this.

In 1985 UK legislation to criminalise female genital mutilation was introduced, but there has never been a single prosecution.

These figures are shocking, and sad.

It is difficult to understand how one human can deliberately hurt another in such a barbaric traumatic way.

I can't begin to know how the girls and women who have been mutilated must feel, not just physically, but emotionally. My heart hurts for them.

That's why I started this blog post by saying I don't understand the World, or rather I don't understand people, some people.

There are millions of girls and women who have been subjected to the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation.

I've read enough articles on FGM, and watched interviews of girls and women who have been abused, because that's what FGM is - abuse, to know that for many of them it has ruined their lives.

If they could turn back time, they would never undergo female genital mutilation. Of course they wouldn't. Why would they? Surely no girl or woman would want to subject themselves to such horror.

Or would they?

Sadly they would, there are lots of woman, I don't know the exact number, but lots of women who have voluntarily mutilated their genitals, not personally, but with the help of a plastic surgeon.

These women are not victims, well, not in the same way that the girls and women of forced FGM are victims, these women made a conscious decision to go under the knife.

At least it's a conscious decision as far as being brain-washed by the media to look a certain way to be considered 'normal'.

Why would any woman not only make the decision to mutilate her own genitals, but to also pay a lot of money for the pain?

One reason. They want a playboy pussy.

How sad.

I have seen footage of women talking to their plastic surgeons, telling the surgeon that they want a neat playboy pussy. Their words, not mine.

It's a shame they didn't see the video footage about the majority of the playboy 'models'. The footage of them talking about the rise in popularity of so called 'cosmetic surgeries' aka playboy pussy operations. If they had seen the video they'd have heard the models saying it's all crazy, that their vaginas don't even look like what these women ask their plastic surgeons for.

The playboy models said they are 'normal' women, their genitals are all different shapes and sizes, and not some media created ideal of what is considered 'normal'. Yep, they said it was all photoshop.

I only digressed to 'playboy pussies' not because I wanted to lighten the mood, which playboy pussy certainly does not, because that's also a sad sad phenomena, but because it ends this blog post nicely, or as nice as a post about the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation, FGM, can be ended.

I find it funny, yes I said funny, as inappropriate as that word may be in a blog post about FGM, that there are millions of girls and women who are suffering the traumatic results of female genital mutilation, and there are also women who have willingly had their genitals mutilated.

As I said at the beginning of this post, it is a crazy World. Or more accurately, we, humans, are crazy. Humans are funny creatures that's for sure. Not funny haha, but funny peculiar.

I wish for a World where female genital mutilation does not exist. A World where one human does not deliberately hurt another human.

What are your thoughts on female genital mutilation, FGM?

If you're living in Britain, were you aware that it was happening here?

Everything Mr.R cooks starts with him sautéing onions and garlic, cos we love 'em, and they're good for our health.

Apart from the onions and garlic, the stew was packed full of other ingredients too including several variety of beans; butter beans, borlotti beans, kidney beans, split-peas, and chickpeas. Also in the beef stew Mr.R added carrots, sweet corn, and peas, tomatoes, and an assortment of spices.

I'm sure there are various other ingredients in the beef stew too, but as I didn't make it I don't know what they all are.

The beef and bean stew was cooked on low for several hours, so the beef was perfectly tender.

Not that we needed it, but because Mr.R likes baking bread, we also had a chunk of his homemade sourdough bread, drizzled with olive oil. Yummy!

We had Brussels sprouts with our beef and bean stew too. We didn't need those either, but I had a serious craving for them, so Mr.R steamed some sprouts for us.

The beef and bean stew worked a treat to warm us up on this horribly cold day. It was a very large meal, and several hours after we ate our tasty lunch I'm still full.

As i sit typing this blog post, Mr.R is asleep, having sensibly decided to have an afternoon/early evening nap after he ate his lunch.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

I cut my hair!
It's not the first time I've ever cut my own hair, and I doubt it will be the last.

I know most hairdressers don't like us cutting our own hair, not because it loses them money, but because it may result in them having to repair our bad scissor skills, but I seriously dislike going to the hairdressers.
So that's why I sometimes cut my hair myself - or get Mr.R to do it for me.
But this time I decided to do it myself, and I liked the result.

Here's a step-by-step look at what I did.

I only cut a little bit of hair off, as my hair is only medium length.

I've been thinking about chopping all of my hair off.

I actually feel like shaving my head, a number one is what I would have, but I know that won't do me any favours looks-wise. So, the next best thing would be to chop it all really short.

This is my 'curtain' before I cut it.

I don't usually wear my hair like this, I centre parted it to cut it.

I've had very short hair in the past, and I liked it. Well, apart from the fact that short hair seems to require a lot of faffing about with, and I'm too lazy to bother. :o

Side view to show my hair was all one length - more or less. ;)

This morning it was very cold, so cold that it even snowed, all be it briefly.

It was the falling snowflakes that snapped me out of going crazy with a pair of scissors like Betty; the character played by Beatrice Dalle in the film Betty Blue.

Instead I decided that less is more, especially when the weather is cold, so I just gave my hair a little trim.

Step 1 - Combing hair forward in preparation to be cut.

I do not like going to hair salons, so I usually cut my hair myself, or Mr.R does it for me.

Today Mr.R was very busy in the kitchen, baking bread, making homemade hamburgers, and homemade chips, so I didn't think he'd appreciate me adding hair-cutting to his tasks.

Step 2 - The first twist.

I had a quick look on YouTube for suitable videos. I searched, 'face framing layers'.

I'm not sure why I bothered searching for a hair cutting video, because I've cut layers in my hair lots of times, and it's always turns out ok. Although I'm sure a professional hairstylist would disagree. Ha!

Step 3 - The second twist.

I quickly found what looked like a good hair cutting video.

It's called, 'How to shape hair around the face' by Sam Villa.

His video shows viewers a different way to cut layers around the face.
The method looked so simple, and he explained the process really clearly.

Step 4 - Cut!

I tried the Sam Villa twist method to cut face framing layers in my hair, and it was a success.

His twist process worked very well. No doubt it would have worked even better if I'd used a comb as he suggested, and if my hair wasn't a lot thinner on one side of my head.

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Well, they didn't ask for my opinion, I do not love loyalty cards. I don't even like them.

There's nothing loyal about the relationship between the British shops who offer loyalty cards, and their customers.

Loyalty cards are in no way beneficial to consumers. Consumers who have been sucked in to believing the loyalty cards are helping them to get more for their money. I guess that's what successful marketing and advertising can do.

Big business is in no way interested in giving its customers value for money. Loyalty cards; those awful pieces of plastic that take up too much space in your purse or wallet, are all a big con.

Surely people realise that loyalty cards don't really give them anything for free.

It's obvious that to make it appear as though the customers are receiving a benefit of some sort, the businesses simply raise the price of the items they allocate points on, or on other items in their shops. They're not going to let anything affect their profits.

Another thing I don't like about loyalty cards is the fact that they are yet another way for 'Big Brother' to spy on us.

They know every item you purchase, when you shop, how you shop, and where you shop. They can gather so much information about you, just by your use of a loyalty card.

There are those people who say, 'If you've got nothing to hide, why do you care?" But that's really not the point, and no doubt the people who use this argument wouldn't dream of sitting in their lounge with no curtains at the windows so everyone could see exactly what they were doing. So why do they think it's acceptable for companies to either use for themselves, or sell our personal information?

To those people who say, if you've got nothing to hide...... I say, it's not about hiding your information, it's about privacy.

Anyway, here's want the government survey reported:

Three quarters (76%) of consumers said they have between 1 and 5 loyalty cards that they always carry with them.

But, 1 in 4 (40%) said remembering to carry the loyalty cards with them was inconvenient.

And a quarter (22%) said they often forgot to carry their loyalty cards with them.

A total of 68% of consumers said they disliked two things about loyalty cards.

One, time limits on offers. Two, restrictions on offers.

The most popular redemption offers were stated as; 42% of consumers said they liked accumulating the points to cash them in at a later date. While 31% said they used them for purchasing essentials. And 31% said they used their points for purchasing treats.

Other results of the survey showed that 20% of consumers preferred to cash in their points at the earliest opportunity. And 8% stated a preference for receiving instant discounts at the till.

According to this survey 32% of consumers said they would happily provide extra information about their shopping habits and profile, in return for extra points.

The government survey also concluded that loyalty schemes are currently so popular because British shoppers are thrifty. According to the survey, 66% of those questioned agreed, or strongly agreed with this statement, "I am more price-conscious than one year ago".

A third (36%) of consumers said they are using loyalty cards and coupons more than they they were a year ago. Almost half (48%) of the people surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, "I am more carful to remember my loyalty cards and coupons when I go shopping".

I wonder who first came up with the idea of loyalty cards, as we know them today? No doubt that person has made millions, or more likely billions of pounds for the companies who hand out loyalty cards like sweets; something nice for us to be pleased about, and to enjoy.

I am mainly referring to supermarkets in this blog post, because they are the biggest offenders of abusing their customers via loyalty cards. Although I know other businesses also have loyalty card schemes.

Having said that, I guess I should mention that not all of the supermarkets in Britain have loyalty card schemes. Asda doesn't, and neither do Aldi and Lidl. Thankfully those are the 3 places we do the bulk of our food shopping, so at least we don't get asked, "Do you have a loyalty card, and if not, would you like one?" every time we get to the till.

I remember fondly the 'old days' when you could go in to a shop and not be bombarded with in-your-face and aggressive offers. You were free to browse the goods for sale, check the price, and then if you so wished purchase your chosen product. Shopping was much more straight forward, and far less stressful than it is today.

Now days, it's often so difficult to even figure out how much an item is. And as for comparing the price of one brand with the same product of a different brand - forget it.

I don't like shopping. I don't want to spend any longer than necessary in a shop. I have much better things to do with my time than to stand querying prices and weights on every single item in the shop.

Big business does everything possible to make this almost impossible, or so frustrating that you just grab a product randomly and sling it in your basket or trolley.

The prices on the shelves are never standardised. Some will have price per gram, others per ml, and various other measurements. It's ridiculous.

They obviously do not want their customers to be easily able to work out what's the best buy for them, which actually does not always mean the cheapest.

I'm fed up of seeing supposedly generous offers of 'buy one, get one free', or 'buy three for the price of two' etc. I don't want 3. I just want one!

No wonder it's also been reported that the average British household throws away nearly 50% of it's grocery shopping. We're being forced to buy way more than we need, or want.

But what do the supermarkets care? They are coining it in, literally. They make millions just from the stuff we chuck in the bin. And then they make even more money from us because our fridges, freezers, cupboards are empty so we need to buy more. We've run out of everything because it either went off before we could eat it, because we'd bought too much, or we've throw it in the bin because we realised we didn't actually need 3 of whatever was on offer the day we shopped.

Unfortunately I doubt we'll ever see the dearh of loyalty cards because they are too valuable a tool for gathering information about us. And as we all know, it's the supermarkets who really run this country, not the government, and information is power. And power equals money.

Grrr! I realise I have slightly wandered off topic in this post about Brits love of loyalty cards, to my serious dislike of supermarkets, but I couldn't help it. It's a subject I often can't stop myself from having a rant about.

So, back to loyalty cards, basically as I think you'll have gathered - I'm not a fan. That's why when I read that three quarters of Brits love them, I was quite surprised. And slightly concerned.

Surprised, because I often hear people in shops moaning about loyalty cards, and I've never heard anyone saying they like them, or anything positive about them.

Concerned, because it says a lot about the education system in this country if people genuinely believe that loyalty cards are beneficial to them in any way.

One last thing before I get sidetracked again, as I was writing this post, something popped in to my head, the saying, 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics'. Which probably explains why the figures quoted in this government survey don't make sense and aren't exactly accurate, or maybe that's also down to the education system in Britain. ;)

What's your opinion?

Do you like loyalty cards? If so, I'd be interested to hear why you like them.

2. I don't enjoy visiting hair salons as I don't like people (strangers) touching me, or being sat facing a huge mirror while the stylish babbles on and on.......

3. I'm not particularly girly, or self-obsessed with my appearance.

Oops, slightly sidetracked. ;)

So, back on track. My hair is fine, but there's quite a lot of it, or so said a stylist I visited many many moons ago.

I rarely brush or comb my hair. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it's totally true. In fact prior to purchasing the Tangle Teezer hairbrush I hadn't brushed my hair for about a decade.

The reason I don't brush my hair is simply because it hurts too much. And it makes my hair even more full of static than usual. And I just never think about brushing it.

But lately, after suffering severe stress, I noticed my hair was looking much thinner. So I thought maybe brushing it would help to remove the loose dead hairs, and the act of brushing could possibly stimulate my scalp, which could improve my limp locks.

But as I said, brushing my hair has always caused me pain.

Pain because my hair is crazy. It's always full of knots and tangles, and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, of course it's tangled if you don't brush it for 10 years. Even when I have regularly brushed my hair, which was when I was a child, by which I mean my mum used to brush it, it was still full of tangles. In fact when I was about 8 years old I told my mum I wanted all of my lovely long hair chopped off because I disliked it being brushed.

I had it cut very short in a pretty pixie style. I liked it, and more importantly no more tears when my hair was brushed.

Maybe I should chop my hair off now, but as I said I'm far too lazy to do anything with my hair, and short hair cuts always need a lot of attention; regular trims and styling etc.

Having lived in the South of France for 10 years, followed by 2 years spent travelling around the World, I'd been out of the loop re beauty products, so I hadn't heard of the Tangle Tweezer Brush.

I can't remember where or when I first found out about it, but I think I read something online and then I used Google and almost everything I read about it was positive. I read lots of reviews before checking it out on Amazon UK. We tend to buy most things we want and/or need via Amazon because it's usually cheaper then elsewhere and always reliable.

The reviews were good, so I ordered a Purple Tangle Teezer Brush from Amazon UK. It cost £8.36.

It arrived quick. But as I'm not in the habit of brushing my hair, I didn't use it for a while, I didn't even take it out of the box for about a week.

Eventually I thought I'd try out my new brush.

Although I'd read lots of positive reviews I wasn't actually expecting it to be the great product so many people were raving about. Not because I thought the success of the product was due to great marketing, but because my hair truly is a mass of tangles. But I was in for a surprise. A pleasant surprise. The Tangle Tweezer worked, it worked very well.

The Tangle Teezer is very light, it's made of plastic, with lots of thin, and flexible plastic teeth, in what looks like two different lengths, there may be more than two lengths, my eyesight is not perfect.

The shape of the brush is similar to a kidney bean. Before I used it for the first time, I assumed, as the box states, that it had been ergonomically designed to fit the hand comfortably.

That's the only thing I don't like about the Tangle Teezer, the shape. It doesn't feel comfortable in my hand, and I don't think my hands are unusually shaped. The brush feels like it's the wrong way round to me, if the bristles were on the opposite side it would feel more comfortable. But that's just a small niggle, and although it doesn't feel as though it fits comfortably in my hand it is not uncomfortable - if that makes sense.

It just struck me as odd that a hair brush that has supposedly been designed to be a specific shape to feel comfortable when held in your hand - isn't particularly comfortable.

Had they not shaped it as they have, and just made it a standard oblong or square block shape, I wouldn't have commented on it not feeling comfortable.

Hmm, and now due to my rambling I think I've overstated the 'problem' with the shape, comfort etc. It really is not a problem.

So that's what it looks like.

How does it work?

Within a minute or so of brushing my hair, aka birds nest, it was completely knot and tangle free, and better still, no tears were shed. :)

The Tangle Teezer is nice to use, the thin plastic teeth pleasantly tickled my scalp. The act of brushing my hair didn't cause lots of static, which usually happens when I brush my hair.

I was pleasantly surprised how quick and easy the Tangle Teezer had detangled my unruly hair.

After being so impressed with my first use of theTangle Teezer I fully intended to brush my hair daily, but old habits.......

This meant I didn't use the hair brush again for a couple of weeks. But I used it yesterday and once again it painlessly, and quickly untangled all of my many tangles.

I know it's early days, as despite owning it for quite a while now, I haven't used it often, it does seem to have had a positive effect on my hair.

I have always left clumps of stray hairs everywhere I go. I seem to lose a larger than 'normal' number of hairs each day, there are always lots of hairs on my clothes, bed, floor, sofa etc. but since using the Tangle Teezer I'm pretty sure I've been losing less hair, which is good.

Also my hair doesn't have anywhere near as much static as previously, which is especially good because the static used to cause me to get painful electric shocks off of everything I touched.

So, yep, the Tangle Teezer, The Original Detangling Hairbrush, it works well for me. I like it, a lot. :)

Oh yes, one last thing, the hairbrush is made in Britain. That makes a pleasant change, it's a sad rarity these days that anything is actually made in Blighty. I know it's silly, but knowing it's made here makes me like it just that little bit more.

Tangle Teezer, The Original Detangling Hairbrush, made in Britain, and highly recommended for sorting out all of your hair tangles.